Where do stereotypes come from?
With the first difficulties on the way to technical specialties, women
Later, the time comes to choose a profession andstudent body. History repeats itself - studies show that not only in our country, but all over the world, there is a tendency for teachers to condescend to the success of female students. During the Soft Skills School, one of the Women in Tech events of the year, the organizers learned from the participants that not all university teachers supported their choice of profession. Some of them are sure that girls enter technical specialties only to find a future husband. Such words heard from an authoritative teacher are a serious blow to the self-esteem of the future specialist.
And then what?
If a woman could cope with everyonedifficulties described above, then she will find work in the IT field. But you shouldn’t rejoice ahead of time. Trying to simultaneously “join” the fashionable diversity movement, but at the same time not wanting to change anything significantly, companies report that they have achieved gender equality in their teams. Upon closer inspection, it turns out that the vast majority of leadership positions are distributed among men, with women receiving lower pay even when performing the same tasks.
By the way, remuneration should be mentioned separately.After all, according to the Pew Research Center, women are paid 20% less than men. This often happens for the simple reason that a woman is less confident in herself as a specialist. Employees are less likely to ask for a salary increase; they consider their professional skills to be insufficiently high. If recruiters, when searching for potential personnel, spent more time on the skills and potential of the candidate than on his gender, then the number of women in IT would increase due to this alone.
But recruiters tend to target male applicants.Stanford researchers were interested in the question, “Why would John get a job in STEM and Jennifer wouldn’t?” And we learned that, all other things being equal, just a male name in the application is enough for the candidate to have a better chance of moving on to the next stage of the interview. Most women are eliminated at the stage of reading the resume.
What will help fix the situation
One of the main reasons why girls andwomen give up and fail in IT - fear. If parents and teachers from childhood supported girls' faith in themselves, they would reach much greater heights in the future. This would help female specialists cope with competition among men, find successful role models and gain self-confidence.
A great example in this case is LianaMeliksetyan is the executive director of Tsifra. As a child, Liana wanted to connect her profession with music, but thanks to her father's enthusiastic stories about information technology, the girl began to take an interest in science and technical professions.
Nowadays, there are no problems with changingprofession and the study of information technology. Many online courses, master classes, books are available online for free - and this is a good start from scratch. For those who have already decided on their future field, professional online schools and internships will help. It is important not to be afraid to change the field of activity, to try new things. You can now master the IT profession from anywhere in the world and work in your specialty remotely. To do this, you no longer need to enter a university.
If we talk about personal qualities that are neededfor development in IT, it is motivation, self-education skills and self-confidence. Finding a suitable job can take a while, and that's okay, so don't get upset and give up after the first rejections.
Where to study and seek support
One of the most powerful initiatives available to everyonechange or acquire the profession of an IT specialist - Google Career Certificates. This is a six-month express training program in information technology. The level of preparation of students based on this Google project is equivalent to four years of study at a specialized university.
An online community for women organized byAnita Borg Sisters is another project designed to help women advance in IT. Within the framework of an international organization, they can count on help from more experienced colleagues, as well as participate in the Pass-It-On Awards program and receive financial support of about $ 500-1,000.
Django Girls, a non-profit organization activeengages girls and women in IT. Volunteers regularly conduct programming master classes, where everyone can try their hand at development from scratch. The organization's events are often held on the territory of Russia. Django Girls also invites experienced professionals as trainers and volunteers.
What WiT has to offer
International organization Women in Tech toomakes efforts to promote gender equality in IT in Russia. The main task of the community is to support women in four areas: education, entrepreneurship, social inclusion and STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics). Since December 2019, Women in Tech Russia have organized about 20 exciting events for women in technology. Due to the situation that has developed in 2020, since March, these initiatives have been taking place online, which makes them available to residents of all regions of the country. Over the year, the WiT community in Russia has grown to 2,000 people, and the audience of its events amounted to about 15,000 participants.
According to WiT Russia, now only 25%women can say that the gender composition of their workforce is approximately equal, 65% of those surveyed work in a predominantly male state. These numbers say a lot about gender equality in the Russian IT sector. Initiatives such as Women in Tech aim to increase the percentage of women working in information technology and make the IT industry comfortable and promising for everyone involved.
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